


Like in That Movie

by larkingstock



Series: connect the dots [3]
Category: Justified
Genre: F/M, Friends With Benefits, Just Friends, No Sex, and a bunch of as many movie references a fangirl can pack in there, and some character study since we're here i guess, as is mandatory for writing Justified i'm pretty sure, plus all those celebrity paradoxes, this time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-22
Updated: 2018-09-22
Packaged: 2019-07-15 10:39:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16061402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/larkingstock/pseuds/larkingstock
Summary: Tim and Rachel figure some things out. In mostly not sexy ways.(...Mostly.)





	Like in That Movie

**Author's Note:**

> _Maybe they forced him to join them. You know? Like in that movie?_  
>  \--2.06 Blaze of Glory
> 
>  _Today's your day to bring coffee.  
>  Oh, shit. Do I still need to...  
> I'll get Tim to do it. He's on an errand anyway._  
> \--2.07 Save My Love
> 
> Immediate sequel to [Perhaps](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13588383).

The first thing he says, as she pulls out of the parking lot, is, "Think Reasoner's gonna be there?"

His long fingers snap his seatbelt in, in the plentiful space between their hips, his leg a lanky cant against the passenger side door. Rachel ignores these things, and answers with her gut. "I doubt it. You?"

"No." He catches her eyebrows rising at his certainty, and those fingers make a dismissive ripple across his knee. "I mean, yeah, we go in case. But Art didn't buy it."

She has to nod at the conclusiveness of that. "Or he'd be here with us." The fact that they are almost certainly on a wild goose chase with nearly a dozen Frat Bros of Interference in tow only irritates her further. Sure, the Marshals--and therefore she, with Art not in the field--have point in running this show, but that doesn't make the show not bullshit. It rankles.

They pass Lexington city limits in silence, and she knows she's not doing a great job of hiding it. Which doesn't bother her much, since she's not really trying to, but by the time Tim speaks, she wonders if she maybe should have.

"Did I cross the line?" he asks so simply it's almost as though he's not very, very carefully feeling this out. Maybe he's not. Neither way would make her glance less exasperated. He sees it and just hones right in. "Cos that seminar about sexual harrassment in the workplace, they might'a said it was 'inappropriate' for me to bring up--"

"How I rode your cock?" Rachel says, as coolly as possible considering the warmth sent coiling between her legs. _Like you owned it_. Lord. She's so annoyed with herself she could spit.

"Yup," he says.

She lifts her chin. She is not woman who can't admit when she's made a mistake. " _Okay_. I shouldn't have started that."

She shouldn't have felt that brief sting of jealousy in the first place. Winona is a strong, smart, beautiful woman who is dealing impressively well with going through a bank robbery and a boot to the face, and they both like her. Tim can show his odd, understated gallantry and bursts of flirty kindness to any woman he wants, it is absolutely none of Rachel's business.

He looks over at her. She does not take her eyes off the road. He says, all mild, "Didn't see me complaining."

No. He hadn't complained. He had chased up Rachel's baiting so swiftly, so thoroughly that every bit of sting she shouldn't have felt disappeared in a hot tingling she _really_ shouldn't feel, while she stood there looking him in the eye just daring him for more.

Tim is a marshal, he chases for a living. He is always that swift and thorough.

Rachel swallows, tightening her hands on the wheel. "I did not join the Marshals just to become the black ho screwing her way through the office."

His confused wince hurts more than it should. "You...know I wouldn't--"

"Tim," she snaps, torn between wanting to reassure him and just be annoyed with him, "you think I'd ever have slept with you if I thought there was a chance you _would_?" And he hadn't, not a _hint_ \--not until _she_ initiated it. She grits her teeth for a second. "Do you have any idea how little it takes? How easily people believe..."

She doesn't need to say it. The confusion is gone, replaced by a look that is all assessment. She can feel it, running over her in a new way, tallying it up, her hair, makeup, accessories. Her _pantsuits_. She's stood completely naked in front of this man and felt less exposed than she does right now.

" _Oh, Tim_ ," she simpers, agressively, "thanks for last night but today my pussy's _all sore_ at work and poor little me, I just _don't_ know what to _do_ about it. Oh _Tim_ , I'm under _so much stress_ with this case, no one's looking, how about you and me sneak in the locker room and find out how quietly you can relieve my _tension_ against the door? Oh, are you on shift manning the phones tonight? _Better not leave your seat_ , Deputy Gutterson."

So, okay, two things: she hadn't been imagining it before, the way he reacted to her calling him that, and, she has successfully redirected his attention. She continues, a little desperately, "I am _not_ doing this," and refuses to examine why, if she's _not doing this_ , those things were what she chose to say to him as a diversion. And she still wants to say more. If that one night with him wasn't enough to prove it, this afternoon has made it clear they both need a serious refresher course on their de-escalation skills.

She shakes her head. "Flirting and damp panties are not worth it and no one's going to care we're only kidding around. Not for me--not when I show up men twice my size and get given assignments over men nearly twice my age."

There is silence, long seconds of it. Then he asks, with unbelievable blandness, "What did make you join the Marshals?"

Rachel glances over, ready to tear him a new one if that's what it takes to get him to take her seriously, only to be met with his clenched jaw and dark pleading eyes, _Help me out here, Rachel_ , and the worst of it is she has left herself no possible way, now, to ask exactly how easy he gets worked up by dirty talk--or test him out on the question herself.

So, she does the only other thing she can think of at this moment, and answers with the grim truth.

"Harrison Ford."

Tim sputters and she's embarrassed, but at least between them they've definitely changed the subject.

"...Really?"

She sighs and rolls her eyes so he knows _she_ knows just how ridiculous it is. "You don't even know, when your mother and big sister are _obsessed_ over how oh-so-fine he is and _The Fugitive_ comes out and they make you sit through it over and over and over again, _just how damn hard_ a girl can start rooting for the Marshals."

She's got him laughing, and it's infectious, too much, because the next thing she knows she's admitting to him, "The second Tommy Lee Jones yelled _I don't care_ at that man, I was crushing."

"No." He's still laughing, though, incredulous and thoroughly delighted about it. " _No_. Tommy Lee Jones? Over Harrison Ford. How _old_ were you?"

"Hey, look, he was smart! And cool and sarcastic and funny and great at his job!"

"But--Han Solo. Indiana Jones! Deckard!"

"All assholes!"

"And Tommy Lee Jones _wasn't_?"

" _Anyway_ \--he also ran a _damn_ good team. With a sista who wasn't there to be sexy or sassy or play mamma to all the boys but kick ass and get it done just like the rest of them, got it?"

"Copy." Tim's eyes are shining, warm and unguarded, the deeper of his dimples flashing in and out, for her. It's nothing like his solicitude to Winona back at the office, and Rachel finds herself grinning back. "The one-armed man, huh?"

"The one-armed man," she confirms.

"That blue-pill douche from _The Matrix_ , wasn't he on the team too?"

"Uh huh." She looks at him, slyly. "And a dopey skinny new kid who's mostly there to bring the boss coffee. And a chocolate donut, with those little sprinkles on top."

"Uhhhhh-huh." He nods, eyes glinting. "Okay. Well--we aim to please."

His words could so easily become innuendo, and it's there, that layer. He's aware as she is, the inescapable fact of how they slept together right in the middle of it, yet as their eyes hold for a beat, it's almost a dare in the other direction. To let it be there, part of it, and not react.

She tries it out, turning her eyes back on the road with a teasing, lofty _hmmm_ , and feels him silently sink in the same groove too, face forward. "So that's it, huh?" he asks, letting the layer settle deeper under the surface. "Some bizarre pubescent crush on Tommy Lee Jones's ugly mug--"

"--A truly righteous grudge against Harrison Ford's smug, smarmy, cocksure ass--" she corrects.

"--and little Rachel's dream of always gettin' her man and working her way up to Art's Best Deputy Ever and chief-apparent to the Lexington Field Office, was born."

"Whatever I do, I'm doing it right and I'm doing it the best."

"I believe you," he murmurs, and his tone has nothing to do with innuendo.

"And no," she continues, riding over the throb of that until it, too, flattens down in her to something acceptable, "for your information, I wanted to be all kinds of things. Firefighter. Puppy dog walker. Lawyer. Pop star diva--"

"Okay hold on, I'm gonna need a minute to picture that one."

Rachel laughs, still a little embarrassed, but--what the hell. "Well, it's not so hard when you remember Whitney in _The Bodyguard_ 's name was Rachel, too."

"Oh, huh...right." He's looking over at her, processing that a little too closely for a moment, and she shrugs it off.

"Didn't stick long."

His friendly teasing returns just as quick. "Couldn't sing?"

She gives him a slaying look. "Nope, that's Costner's reason. Shawnee and me, our concerts brought the house down, I'll have you know. Or, the living room anyway." Just for the grin he gives her, she allows him a tidbit more on the visual. "Aluminum foil, went through whole rolls of it. But even back then--in my version--Whitney stopped being such a flighty pain in the ass, picked up a gun and learned to kick butt her own damn self."

"See, now, give me that power ballad."

They're approaching Tate's Creek Bridge. "Too bad for you, around the time the career options talk started up at school, the second _Marshals_ movie came out and--just kinda stuck with me. And now here I am."

"Yeah. Too bad for me."

Rachel pulls over, and catches his eye, his crooked grin of so much warmth he has to push it down, too exposed. She swallows. "Tim, this whole thing...None of it is about spending the night with you. You know that, right? It's...just..." Unbidden, her eyes dart around them, the other cars pulling up, the logistics of the situation beginning to file themselves up in her head for her to take charge of, before returning to him.

He's just looking at her, chin inclined. "What do you need?" he asks, steady gaze and a blank check, offered up without reserve.

She can only stare back, for a second, before the job and clock in her head chime their demands. "I need--work. This. I need... _normal_."

Tim nods, understood, and says, "Okay," as easy as a done deal. When he reaches for his door handle she takes a grip of his sleeve beside her, and he stops, looking over.

"You are the best partner I ever worked with," she says in a rush because he'd asked her what she needed, and she told the truth--but it wasn't the truth she _needed_ to tell. "I don't want to lose this. Lose you."

He doesn't immediately respond. Surprise has got him soft beneath his hard face, the paused curl of his body, eyes widening just a fraction at her, and his mouth too. It's just uncertain enough to make her add, "I'm not losing you, Tim. I refuse."

He ducks his head away for a second, mouth pulling, before he draws up with a quick glance and dry well-trained agreement, "No ma'am."

It does an incredibly bad job of hiding that what she said matters to him, making tenderness flutter helplessly inside her own ribs like sympathy. She decides to help him out. "All right. So long as that's clear."

He nods, wordless, just looking at her for a second, friend, colleague, and one-off lover all shuffled together, before he knocks the side of his fist against hers, and slides out of the car and right into work mode.

It takes Rachel a second, getting out herself, to school the smile away to something more appropriate for issuing orders, but nearly an hour later it's still simmering, closer and closer to the surface as the chatter on the radios flutters and flares up around the relative merits of Kurt Russell versus Sam Elliott. She's aware it's a sign of how not-seriously she's taking this that she hasn't bothered to shut it down--she wasn't really paying attention even when it started, either, though it seemed to involve movies that inspired these careers of the respective special agents and deputy marshals, and though he hasn't weighed in for a while, she strongly suspects Tim was involved in the instigation of it.

The argument is beginning to seriously heat, though, and while the plaintive bleating across the common frequency of, "--and the Sundance Kid _! And_ he _married Katharine Ross!_ " is amusing, she's beginning to think she should maybe cut in. Or at least issue a ruling.

Which of course is why the next thing to be heard is Tim's drawled, " _You are_ all _idiots._ "

There's a certain unanswerable authority to the statement, and even the rabble of protests seem to recognize it. She's full-on grinning now, glad none of the team can really see her inside the SUV--benefits of running things, she gets to be comfortable and warm and dry--while Tim in his sniper's perch of sticks and stones and light rain and a twenty-minute roundabout trek from shelter, continues over the other voices and poor radio etiquette, " _Listen, you could be anyone from the movie, you pick Michael Biehn. It's the only answer. Come on._ "

There's silence for a second as this is weighed, and then someone whose voice she's glad not to recognize objects, " _But he went out like a pussy._ "

" _Doc Holliday, though--_ " someone else starts, as if to be reasonable about it, but Tim's already pushing back, with an edge to his laying down of the law that seems to come right from Rachel's own narrowed eyes.

" _So? Who gives a shit. The man was badass enough to back up Sarah Connor AND Ellen Ripley. That's it. Ain't nobody topping that convergence in our lifetime, fellas. Probably ever._ "

Rachel knew there was a reason to like him.

The silence is a lot more thoughtful this time, and then Art's name lights up on her phone, and by the time she returns to a debate that's apparently shifted to pitting a terminator against a predator against a xenomorph, she knows exactly why the bulk of the manpower on this case is arguing out of their asses in the middle of nowhere and it _definitely_ rankles. There's no way they're getting to either Art or Raylan in time to be of any use, but she splits the taskforce anyway and speeds them on their way, wishing extra hours of driving pointlessly around Kentucky backroads on the entire pack of them.

They're long gone, but the drizzle's dried up and the sun's peeking out so she's still outside, leaning back against the shoulder of the SUV to stretch her legs, by the time Tim jogs up, shaking water off his windcheater. The little grin he gives her is all it takes to tell her why she stayed waiting behind for him, instead of delegating it to someone else, and she holds up two large coffees that she might perhaps have abused her authority to send one of her units to fetch, not long before she got Art's call. It makes his grin to her grow into something heart-meltingly grateful, which suddenly makes her realize that no one's around and no one's expecting them anywhere anytime soon, and--she cannot drag him into the spacious back seat and fuck him senseless. She can _not_.

It would be so, so much easier to resist if he were doing it on purpose.

"Thought you could do with something hot and strong, warm you up," she says, because apparently her mouth isn't done with the mixed signals for today.

Fortunately, Tim's already moving to stow his gear in the trunk and doesn't seem to have noticed. He shucks the jacket and soaked baseball cap, the damp hair at the back of his neck all ruffled and spiky from his fingers, and Rachel hastily makes herself get back in the driver's seat just so she can stop tracking his neat, efficient, familiar movements, the way they so easily slot in with what she now knows of him being loose, eager--sexy--

\--okay she needs to _think about something else_.

It might be taking a leaf out of his own book, helping _herself_ out, but by the time he climbs in beside her, slicking the wet off his face and scrubbing through his hair, she's got something. Or half a thing, maybe...and maybe, it's just Reasoner's wife also still rankling in her ears, in pathetically bewildered denial at the reality of her model-inmate, computer-game playing, deacon-serving ex-con husband of over thirty years in front of her very eyes. But all together it's tickling at her marshal instincts, there's something to dig for, here. Besides, Lord knows she needs something to focus on.

She takes her own cap off, keeping things indirect, broad and exploratory while Tim gets himself situated. She's pretty sure she would have noticed, if he'd mentioned it, even if she wasn't paying much attention. "So what was it made you enlist in the army, then?"

He obviously doesn't quite follow, but he answers readily enough. "It was there." A quizzical shrug. "Why?"

She shrugs in return, gives it a touch of teasing, and starts the engine. "Michael Biehn. Future underground resistance soldier...ragtag Space Marine..."

His face clears, understanding, and he retrieves his coffee from the cupholder with a wry quirk of his lips. "Well, if those branches had recruitment centers in Indiana, I couldn't find'em."

She's not sure enough to push much, so she goes with the conversational flow a bit further. "But he was also...was it a Navy SEAL? In..."

" _Navy Seals_?"

He's teasing back, but she frowns. "The one with Connery, and the--oh, _The Rock_."

"Oh, yeah." Tim perks a bit, but then shrugs again, interservice scorn at its finest. "Fish in a barrel for rogue Ed Harris. Pass." He takes it back to the original question, dismissing it with a shake of his head. "Nah. I mean...I remember watching _M*A*S*H_ reruns as a kid, I guess...? But mostly just 'cause they were funny."

She nods, and abandons it too, to go for the opening he's handed her. "He does kind of die a lot, though. Michael Biehn. You gotta admit."

Tim takes a swallow of his coffee, perfectly casual, and stands by his verdict. "Still worth it. To bang those two."

A few weeks ago, Rachel might have bought that tactic of crudeness from him, even if it's unusual for him to go that coarse with her. Now she lets some road go by, mulling it over. She's familiar with _Tombstone_ , of course--she doesn't technically think you're allowed to qualify for the Marshals if you're not--but it has been a while. Just out of curiosity..."What is it Doc says about him? He needed revenge...?"

"For bein' born," Tim finishes, and then stills as he realizes how he snapped up her perfectly casual lure. He eases a little deeper in his seat with his coffee, just gazing out the window, but his thumb taps against the sill of it, one tiny notch of quiet intensity.

Rachel nods again. It's a line that stays with you. "A great empty hole, right through the middle of him he could never fill."

Okay, the faintly amused look he gives her is a good play, just the right amount of aloofness to make anyone feel stupid for thinking there was anything on the line at all. Unfortunately for him, it wasn't very long ago at all she was there when he and Raylan volunteered their relaxing little flinty-eyed exchange about shooting their own fathers, in what she can only assume was their best attempt at solidarity about Clinton and Shawnee and the mess of her family and having just shot and killed a man herself--so she's beginning to have an inkling of just how well Tim does detachment. And the fact he kept it all flying under the radar, before that...well, that is just another kind of real interesting.

So no, she'll not be letting him off the hook for now. But she'll play the line out a bit...from a certain point of view.

"Always liked Doc Holliday," she muses, after a silent minute in which Tim gives nothing away. His head doesn't turn, but in her periphery she catches the flicker of his eyes towards her anyway. "How he could understand people. Even Johnny Ringo. He knew just how evil the man had gone--but he had compassion, too. Went and put him out of his misery."

Tim's little eyeroll is very convincing, and Rachel doesn't buy it for a second. "He was there savin' his terminally dumbass buddy."

Rachel grins. "Good point. He's loyal to the death, too."

Tim does what he can to stifle the snort of resigned laughter, but it's too late. He looks at her, narrow-eyed. "Good point. He does also die. And Val Kilmer gets--who, Nicole Kidman?"

She thinks about it for a second. "Robert Downey Jr."

He snorts again, but the next moment she feels his gaze sliding over her, and there's a wicked pushback about it when he murmurs, "Short, curvy--incredible brown eyes?"

She keeps the catch of breath back the best she can, but she can't help her eyes darting over, meeting his. "Nah," he says, deadpan, just daring her with it. "Not my type."

The phrase _just enough rope to hang herself_ is feeling uncomfortably apt right now, but before she can do more than tighten her mouth, he gives it a glance and jinks again, putting himself back in the hot seat.

"Besides. The reason Doc can understand Ringo is they're both damned. Just two sides of the same fucked up--dead--coin." He's talking about it as lightly as she did. "Trying to burn the world down or trying to make the world burn them down, either way..." He shrugs easily. "They know they don't belong in it, only a matter of time. Ends the same place."

Rachel's mouth has dropped open. "Oh, cry me a fucking river," she snaps, and it almost makes her angrier at him that his startled look isn't offended but _curious_. "What a juvenile self-indulgent fucking _bullshit_ waste. This world was _built_ for them, they've got everything there is to have, but because shit is fucked up and their feelings are hurt, all they can do is try and fuck it up _more_?" She grips the steering wheel painfully tight for a few seconds, but it doesn't help much. "I take it back. Fuck Val Kilmer."

Tim's looking down at his coffee, silent, but out of the corner of her eye she sees his mouth twitching up at that. It takes some of the wind out of her, and there are times she really resents how she's not built so much for sustained rage as for sarcasm.

She also really, really wishes she was built less for nagging internal worry.

"Okay, tell me this," she grinds forward, because she's just about had it with this and fuck him if he can't keep up. Besides, she's always preferred to go straight at a thing. "I like Raylan. I really do. But that man is a dumpster fire that sometimes explodes--so you explain to me why it is, him arriving here made you _relax_."

His mouth opens, and he turns to look at her, but then he just frowns, without saying anything. At least he's not pretending he doesn't know what she's talking about.

"Because," she pushes harder, "Ringo's a vicious asshole to the bone, yes, but he doesn't go really ballistic until he loses Powers Boothe, standing between him and everyone else. Like with him there he let his guard down, just a bit. And then Wyatt kills him. The one guy who..." She struggles, looking for the words for it.

"...was damned enough himself to know who he really is, and still bear bein' anywhere near him," Tim finishes for her mildly.

Oh good, she's got anger back. She gives him a blazing look for that. "I will fucking slap you."

"And Doc," he continues, just as smooth, that genial unfazed charm he presents to strangers--the one he'd maintained without any sign of effort, with everyone, with _her_ , all those months he worked with them before Raylan showed up with his own bulletproof charm and killer's eyes, drawing focus from that flint that started surfacing in Tim's in reply. "Drowning his worthless, doomed existence in any party he can get his hands on. Boozing, fucking, gambling, killing. Only time he gets close to being even half alive is when Wyatt's there. One guy out there gettin' through the world in a way Doc can understand that's even partway worth doing."

Rachel's gonna blame how thrill-a-minute the last few months have been that she's only just noticed the way Art's trigger-pulling problem child swaggered into their lives and promptly gave Tim the opportunity to shoot no less than four men--two of them lethally, and handed to him _on purpose_.

He's fallen silent, and she's too angry now to even look at him. And then he goes and does it again.

"You're right. That is kind of bullshit."

And--he refrained from killing the other two, while she was the one who point-blank dared them to give her an opportunity. And, the whole time she's known him, he's been nothing but reliable, and respectful. And caring and kind and _there for her_ about her own shooting...and probably also being opportunistic for sex, but she's got the distinct impression he's not struggling in that regard, and in any case the caring and all the rest came long before any suggestion of sex was ever on offer...and once it _was_ \--

She wrenches her thoughts away from that track immediately--but then of course, today when she solicited the possibility and then shut it right down again, he rolled with both without being an ass about it either way. He just asked, with total sincerity, _what do you need._ Putting himself out there, repeatedly, to be a friend for her.

Rachel takes a shaky breath, and grips the wheel tighter again. "What do _you_ need, Tim?" she asks, quietly.

His double-take is one of true surprise before he closes it back up, looking away out the window. "Nothing, Rach," he says after a minute, just as quiet.

Well. So long as they're still wading through bullshit.

"All right," she says, grimly, and then takes a deep breath. "I have never told anyone this before. So. You just--" She realizes, a moment late, she has nothing to tell him to do he's not already doing. "Sit there." So she might as well go with it. "Shut up. And listen good. And--don't be an ass."

She pauses, then, because after the last few minutes, there's a chance he might believe she actually thinks he is. But a quick check, and the twist his lips are at tells her the kidding came through clear. She can't help half-grinning back, shaking her head. "The second _Marshals_ movie. The reason it...stayed with me. Made me choose to become a marshal." She hesitates. This particular thing, it's not a secret, exactly, so much as...personal. But then, she doesn't believe Tim will make fun of her. "Tommy Lee Jones's boss."

He doesn't make fun of her. He looks blank, and then a little apologetic. "I never saw that one," he says.

"Oh." Now she's not sure where to begin explaining. "Well--I mean, fugitive Wesley Snipes, so..."

"Finally someone worth watchin', over and over and over again?"

She shares his grin. " _Ohh_ yeah." _Some_ teases are only right and proper. And somehow, it lets the explanation come easier. "But--Gerard's boss was a woman. Chief of the Chicago office...or, well, he introduces her as the US Marshal, which sure, is damn cool for a movie called _US Marshals_ , but she mostly _acts_ like Chief Deputy, so..." and he shares her well-worn grimace at Hollywood never letting accuracy get in the way of a story. "Anyway. She was boss and you could see why he respected her. Smart and tough as nails, probably even more than him--and okay, she's white, but I looked at her and I thought...why not me?"

She can feel Tim, looking at her. It takes her a bit to look at him back, because she'll admit there are times even she can't keep the scope of her ambition from feeling insane, but then when she does there isn't a scrap of laughter or derision in his face. There's not a lot to go on for _what_ his expression is, but the warmth in it makes her question come out more soft than self-defensive. "...What?"

He's silent for a minute, but a tiny smile at her is beginning to work, just as softly, at his mouth. It looks, just a little bit, like genuine happiness. "No, I..." His smile is growing, a crooked flash of teeth, and Rachel still doesn't know entirely what to make of it. "I'm just trying to get used to it. Gettin' to ride shotgun with the future Chief Deputy of the Northern District of Illinois."

He says it lightly, but it's not teasing in the slightest, and Rachel laughs. Then demurs. "Or--something like that, anyway."

It's a lie. She's pragmatic enough to be flexible with the direction, if not the height, of her ambition, but in her most childishly uncompromising heart of hearts...she wants Chicago. And she has the feeling Tim didn't buy it for a second.

But he doesn't push her on it. He just nods, either way, and now he's slipping into exactly the right kind of teasing again, warming her even more. "Art's gonna be so proud."

It's plain Tim really does believe that--and that he's not only talking about Art. For a moment Rachel finds it hard to speak. Or even breathe, a tiny bit. She fixes her eyes on the road, getting both back under her control, more determined than ever to tell him this. "Anyway. You can tell she's got the goods as boss. Knows the game, knows the players, and even though Gerard can make things difficult for her, she can handle it. But she also cares about him."

Despite the lack of direct pushing, Tim's evidently still been trying to track why she's insistent on sharing this with him now. "Oh, okay--so, you mean, like Art with Raylan...?"

Rachel blinks. "Uh, no." Then laughs. "Or at least...oh, God, I hope not." She might need brain bleach for that image, so the least she can do is share it. "Pretty sure they hooked up working together in the past, so..."

Tim's face is a silent picture, and makes Rachel laugh harder. Though it does also get her to wondering, finally, how much Art has noticed about all this. Whether he's too busy clucking over her, and trying to corral the worst of Raylan's impulses, to notice the subtle shift in Tim in the past month or so, too. When she first started working under Art, it took Rachel a while to appreciate just how effective he could be in his patient, laidback methods with his people. As a management style she's found it worth studying, even if it won't ever be her way of doing things--it's not like she can afford to let people underestimate her in the ways he can, not and hope to get _anywhere_ , let alone retain the authority she needs to be obeyed without overt doubt or challenge, and that's just for starters.

But now that she's _finally_ pulling at the thread on these patterns--like, for example, how Tim quietly ducked absolutely everyone in the office attempting to gossip or congratulate over his instantly legendary shot with the pregnant hostage, except of course Raylan, who, apart from having actually been there, never showed any interest in it at all--she's suddenly certain the bourbon with the guys in Art's office wasn't just about making sure the right bodies were around to keep her from falling apart that night. She shelves her slight sense of relief and restored professional pride, and starts mentally reshuffling, reviewing how Art might be approaching this.

She only realizes she's fallen silent when Tim fidgets beside her, confused, curious, dryly amused. "Well. That was a very nice story, Rachel."

" _The point_ ," she says, glaring for a moment, switching tracks back to Special Deputy United States Marshal Samuel Gerard. "He's a good man. He's a good deputy, and a good friend, and he's worth it. She's there for him. Whether it's reining him in or going to bat for him--or when Newman gets killed--"

"...Wait, sprinkles-donut newbie _also_ dies?"

"--Oh." It is _ridiculous_ to feel guilty over this.

"Yeah, not gonna lie, this all's beginning to feel kinda personal." The aggrieved look Tim makes has her wanting to giggle and she's pretty sure that was its intended purpose.

"Uh...spoilers, I guess? The movie's like fifteen years old!"

"Man, knew it was too good to be true, surviving the first movie. So how do I die?"

And it is probably just as stupid to feel a moment of tacky panic at the back of her throat at that--let alone how unconcernedly he says it--but she has lost all desire to giggle. Then she realizes. "Oh...It was Robert Downey Jr. Being a double-crossing punk--shoots him."

She's not sure how well she's concealing how troubled she feels, but Tim's response is quick and deft, coaxing the tone back to kidding around. "Well, that does it. The wedding is _off_."

She does what she can to meet him halfway. "Thought he wasn't your type, anyway."

He opens his mouth, and then there's a dark-hot strike of his eyes at her before it occurs to Rachel she might have left him nowhere to go, what with the limits of "normal" they've kinda-sorta managed to establish on the flirting. She shakes her head to get them past it, abruptly really Goddamn done with kidding around. "The point. Is. She cares about him--and she refuses to lose him. As her deputy _and_ her friend. Even if he is a dumbass."

He's gone just silent now, though she does at least get a tiny flicker of smile at that last part. But if he's got nothing to say, then fine, she's got more where that came from. "Don't let Raylan's questionable wardrobe decisions fool you. We're in the twenty-first century, this is not the Wild West, posses in the wilderness and lone righteous gunslingers laying down rough justice, it's--a relay team. We work together, and we all get across the line or no one does."

The look he gives her is now slightly annoyed, like why would she explain this to him, and she has a sudden flash on sitting with him, half-dressed in his apartment, telling her _I got your back, Rachel Brooks._ Here in the car, knocking his fist against hers before getting out to go to work, _what do you need._ His soldier boots he still always wears, subtle and unobtrusive, keeping stride in near silence next to the chatty cadence of Raylan's cowboy heels...Hearing Raylan, after only a single week of knowing Tim, assuring that hostage-taker in Riverbrook that _he's there, or I wouldn't be here._

_Savin' his terminally dumbass buddy._

And she pivots on it, smooth as she can, finishing very quietly, "Which means _not just_ Raylan, Tim."

She doesn't look at him. It turns out, maybe she doesn't have much more where that came from.

His head doesn't make it all the way to looking at her either before he's looking back down at his hands, so heavily it feels like the car suspension should be protesting. It's obvious he'd like to make it light, kidding--and he fails utterly when he eventually mutters, "Not sure I can measure up. Being promoted to Tommy Lee Jones, and all."

Right now, Rachel's not sure she can measure up, either. She's pushed and pulled Tim here and he'd do anything it takes to make sure she can shoot when she needs to, and she has _no idea_ what to do to make sure he can _live_ \--of which merely surviving, silent and barren under an opaque smile, is honestly sometimes a lot. She knows. Jesus, she knows. But only ever getting from one second to the next, in the long run--it's not enough. And at this point all she's got to give him is all she's got for herself, not because she always believes it but because the alternative is _bullshit_. "Then you fucking _keep trying_."

Which is when she hears herself. That's...her mother. Not the language--most definitely not the language--but Rachel must have heard it all her life, a refrain so warm and full of belief in her. _You keep trying, baby girl. You keep trying._ And it never, ever truly snapped into focus until just now, paired in her own voice with the same grim determination she's known on her mother's face, growing up. When her father died. When Shawnee died, and Clinton went away for it. Long years when there was no money and a string of too many backbreaking cleaning jobs to count, tapdancing over the abyss.

_You keep trying, baby girl._

She has a catch in her throat, aching, and when she looks over, she can't find it in her to be surprised in the least that it's the grim determination, not any inspirational pep talk, that's gotten Tim to meet her eyes. Lost and open and still, with no sarcastic--or smoothly genial--defense to hide it from her, and it's her mother's own strength and love for her, rising up to reach for him in return, when she tells him again. "You keep trying."

It's not steady, that catch in her throat still holding on--but it's not unsure. What she's asking of him without really any business doing so. And by the way he's looking at her, it's that alone that's making any claim on him at all. Just one slender line asking him not to let himself fall.

His mouth tightens, his jaw, looking away. And then back, a helplessness in his own unsteady answer--all too aware, just as she is, that _try_ is no guarantee of anything. But it's a promise all the same. "Okay."

Rachel has no hope of hiding how much it means to her, so she doesn't bother. She nods, silently--then with a wry and just a little watery smile, knocks her loose fist against his.

**Author's Note:**

> So I know the show gave a little wink to the shift/clarification in Tim's characterization after the first season, so since these two kids needed a bit of a clarification session of their own, I figured it was my chance to tease that out and play with it a bit, like the timeline of Rachel's married status in the last fic. Plus I really just enjoy aiming these two at each other and seeing what they do.
> 
> (Trying to figure out the show's looseygoosey approach to the space and time in which it needs its events to play out (which overall seems to work out at the most to around 18 months for the full six seasons), on the other hand, only gives me a headache, so I'm just gonna steal it instead *fistbump to Hollywood not letting accuracy get in the way of the story*)


End file.
